


Night Vale on Broadway

by Silvia_Phenora, the_angst_alchemist



Series: NVoB [1]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Anxious Carlos, Basically a frick ton of Hamilton song parodies, Canonical Character Death, Carlos and Cecil are Dorks, Carlos is Autistic, Carlos-centric at first and then more characters and therefore more songs start coming in, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Demiromantic Carlos, Demisexual Carlos, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hamilton References, How Do I Tag, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Musical References, Musicals, Nonbinary Character, Olivia is based on canon Olivia, POV Alternating, Song Parody, Strexcorp is Evil, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, as usual, because we don't know much about her in canon and started developing her, but she's basically an OC at this point, musical numbers, sometimes, these tags are a mess, whoops
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-16 15:58:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8108554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvia_Phenora/pseuds/Silvia_Phenora, https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_angst_alchemist/pseuds/the_angst_alchemist
Summary: Carlos has always known that he needed to get to a town called Night Vale- It was in the music, after all!Even his first song ever had expressed what he'd already known deep down.Night Vale, strangely enough, seems that it's got practically a million more songs than most. Luckily, you can't get in trouble for the stuff you sing when you're stuck in a tune. After all, you can't control what you sing.
A mostly canon-compliant fic with a lot of behind-the-scenes non-canon material, and a whole ton of musical soundtrack. A musical AU in which people are sometimes compelled to sing, and that's just life.Inspired by partially, but hopefully not copying, Night Vale: The Musical by SailorPtah.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Whoo! It's finally begun. Welcome, everyone, to Night Vale.
> 
> Oh, wait. Not there yet.

Dancing around the house instead of sitting still, Carlos’s excitement was obvious, even to his older brother, who was busy separating all the marshmallows out of his Lucky Charms so he could eat them all at once. Carlos grabbed his arm and shook it, messing up his brother’s order.

“Dylan! I’m finally gonna get to go to school! It’s the best day of my life!” He squealed, his eyes shining with excitement.  
Dylan laughed into his cereal.

  
“You seriously think that school’s so cool? It’s terrible, Carlos. You’ll find it out soon enough, as soon as you see that the teachers could care less about you, and you’re just another kid to shove through the same ol’ sys–”

  
“Stop being such a cynic, Dylan,” His mother scolded him. “The last time Carlos was excited about something was when we went to the science museum.”

“Meh.” Dylan dropped his eyes back to his bowl.

  
Carlos grinned wide, and sat down in his own chair, swinging his legs excitedly.  
“Can we go now? Please?”

  
“You have to wait a little bit more, dear. It’s only seven.”

  
“Then can I just follow you guys to Dylan’s school?” He begged.

  
“No, Carlos. I’m not going to have you following me. I’m trying to make a good intention for a change,” Dylan joked, and smiled slightly. “Yeah, of course you can, Carl.”

  
“It’s Carlos!” Carlos complained. Dylan reached over and rubbed his hair.

  
“What are you ever gonna do with your life, Carlos…” Dylan mumbled. “Too big of a brain for that tiny head of yours.” He smirked. “Lucky kid.”

  
Carlos grinned.  
“I know exactly what I want to do!”  
A gentle melody started up in the background, a quiet piano. Carlos turned to his brother, and began the song, his first out of many. “I wanna be a scientist there.”

  
“And where’s that, even?” Dylan muttered.

  
“I wanna have the things they’ve got,” Carlos continued softly. “I could be a scientist there… But there’s just one little thing they are I’m not.” Carlos looked down at himself, and the music swelled with a dramatic guitar and an added drum part. He grinned, and climbed up on his chair. His mother tried to say something, but Carlos was already back to his song.

  
“All of my life I've pictured 'em out there, making discov’ries in ev'ry place! I may not be out there with 'em, but I've got what it takes!” He assured Dylan. His eyes shone in excitement. He hadn't even stumbled much on the bigger words! Dylan rolled his own eyes in response.

  
“I've got a hunger and thirst for discov'ry; I wanna travel the world that I see! The future is now, so I don't see how the time isn't right for me!” Carlos turned to his brother and grinned, rolling up the too-long sleeves of his lab coat. “And I'll admit, it's all in my head, but who says it can't be real?”

  
“I do,” Dylan mumbled.

  
“They may be far away, but I can safely say it doesn't change the way I feel! I wanna be a scientist there. Even if it might sound strange! Maybe now, I'm not a scientist yet… But all of that is right about to change!”

  
Dylan scoffed, and stood up, standing nearly eye-to-eye with his brother. “All of your life you've had your head stuck up in the clouds above us here,” He sang in reply. “Don't forget that dirt is solid, and clouds can disappear!”

  
“Yeah, but–” Carlos tried to interrupt, speaking now. Dylan cut him off.  
“When you're a worker, you have a purpose. Like it or not, from retail to drive through. Need I remind you, leave that stuff behind so you can find what yours can be?” Dylan pulled Carlos off of the chair, and Carlos pouted slightly. “'Cause the needs of the most of us… They outweigh the few, and everybody knows it's just the way it goes, and there's nothing you can do.”

  
Carlos sighed. Dylan did like Star Trek. Carlos was a little too young to watch it sometimes, but he absorbed enough through Dylan to catch the reference. Dylan only continued.

  
“You wanna be a scientist, huh? Discover things in places far and near? Who even cares about scientists, Carlos?! The greatest life to live is found right here,” He pointed downwards.

  
“When you boys are done, I’ll be in the car,” Their mom sighed.  
Dylan grinned, and looked at Carlos. “Come on! Last one there is a rotten egg!” He called, and took off sprinting. Carlos followed, and hopped into the car. A bunch of kids were chatting about what they wanted to be as Carlos and Dylan passed. Carlos stared out of his window in the backseat.

  
“Art teacher!”  
“Tailor and shoemaker!”  
“I wanna build houses!”  
“The guy that runs a business!  
“A farmer and dad!”  
Carlos sighed at their lack of imagination. No one wanted to do something big. They all wanted normal, sensible things. No wonder Dylan was so… cynical.  
A nice word, he thought, for something so annoying. He finally tuned back in to the children chorus outside.

  
“We've all got a job to do, and it's how we all survive, by working for our lives…”  
Carlos shuddered. I don’t want to just survive, I want to live!  
“'Cause the needs of the most of us… They outweigh the few.”  
Carlos took a deep breath as Dylan jumped out of the car and left.  
“I know today's the day!” Carlos grinned.  
“Today's the day,” echoed the chorus.  
“I will find what I'm meant to do…” He sang loudly, the chorus singing at the same time.  
“We will find what we're meant to do…”

  
He gazed out of the window hopefully as the music dropped to a softer tune. “The teacher will surely see I'm not like anyone else. She'll take one look and know my rightful calling… She'll understand that I just can't be working away my life…” The car pulled out, and he grinned. “And I can finally…”  
“Finally…”  
“Know what it's like to be alive!” He sang out, hope flooding his voice.

  
The music picked up for the chorus. “I wanna be something that can serve the greater good of our race. I'll do whatever I can to make our world a better place,” The chorus continued without him. Carlos unbuckled as the car pulled up to his new school.

  
“If only I could get to that place!” He sang out, excitedly, and ran up the stairs of his school. “I wanna be a scientist there! It doesn't matter at all where I'm from! Look out, scientists of Night Vale, ‘cause here I am…”  
“Here I am…”  
“... And here I come!”

  
The chorus resumed their conversation as Carlos ran inside, trying to find his classroom without his mom’s guidance. The chorus resumed what they had done earlier as Carlos searched.

  
“Art teacher!”  
“Tailor and shoemaker!”  
“I wanna build houses!”  
“The guy that runs a business!”  
“A farmer and dad!”

  
Finally, everyone joined together for one line, even Carlos. “It's all I wanna be!”

  
The final note was disrupted by one thing: A grumble of Carlos’s stomach. He looked in his bag, only to be answered with no bag lunch or lunch bag. He had forgotten that as well as forgotten to eat breakfast.  
Well, a perfect start to a perfect day… Right?

**Author's Note:**

> Today's song: I Wanna Be from Starship (a Starkid production)  
> Thanks to our friend slytherindeathscythe on tumblr for the recommendation!


End file.
